As our production OLS.Switch implementations grow in scope and complexity, one challenge is how to reflect the current system status in an immediate and visceral way. For example, one of our acquirer-side clients has a production implementation that has grown inexorably and steadily over the past five years to encompass 93 separate system components.
With enterprise-class operations, you’ve got to be realistic: the operations team there does not have the time nor the inclination to scroll through the three to four screens-full of information that comprise the current system status. We asked this group what we could do to make there lives more easy. They responded: “We want one big-ass Green/Red button at the top of the screen depicting overall application status.”
Using this descriptive requirement as a spur, my OLS colleague Dave Bergert implemented something a bit more nuanced and informative, but no less helpful: the Service Status Totals concept (see image at left). He tallies up green (OK), yellow (Warning), red (Error) and bouncing red (Critical) lights and plops that neat and tidy little summary on the top of our UI page.
Now, no Ops scrolling unless any of those three right-hand figures go greater than zero.
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